2013
Installation, die raum, Berlin (DE)
3 cast concrete sculptures, flyer edition

Die Raeume presents a collection of concrete casts molded inside the shower cabins and changing rooms of the Stadtbad Oderberger Straße, the former public bath located next door to die raum. The casts depict detailed sections of the old tile walls with traces of removed fixtures, as well as hollowed-out drainage cavities. Referencing the concrete materiality of die raum and its shower cabin-like dimensions, the installation establishes a physical and aesthetic link between the bath and the exhibition space, between a listed historical monument and a recently built room devoid of history.

Die Raeume functions as a documentation or “salvage” of the otherwise unnoticed surfaces and cavities of an historic public structure before its impending renovation and transformation into a new, privatized entity. In his work Erik Smith often focuses on transitional sites, addressing moments of rupture and the fragmentation of meaning underlying the processes of urban regeneration. Through a series of cast fragments, Die Raeume narrates this inevitable slippage of meaning set within the physical and social context of die raum. (Lotte Møller)